Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Scottish Government submission of 18 November 2021
PE1914/A: Ban school uniforms in secondary schools
I am responding to the Committee on behalf of the Scottish Government in relation to Petition PE1914, raised by Matthew Lewis Simpson, which calls for the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to remove the requirement for school uniforms in secondary schools.
The petition seeks that the Scottish Government removes the requirement to wear school uniforms in secondary schools. I should be clear at the outset that there is no legislative requirement in place in Scotland which legally requires the wearing of school uniform. School uniform policy is a matter for local authorities and individual schools to decide upon at the local level, the Scottish Government would not support a proposal to ban school uniforms at any school within Scotland.
There are also other advantages to wearing school uniforms - these include reducing competition between pupils in respect of expensive clothing brands, which in turn reduces one of the causes of bullying; they help to create a positive image of the school within its local community; and they are also good from a school’s security perspective since they allow school staff to easily identify anyone who does not belong to the school.
However, I do fully sympathise with Matthew’s concerns that buying school uniforms can be one of the most significant school costs for families and this can be a source of anxiety for low income families. That is the main reason why the Scottish Government increased the amounts paid for school clothing grants earlier this year.
I also recognise that not all families will be eligible to receive the school clothing grant, and that some of those families will only be marginally above the qualifying threshold. That is why we have committed to introducing statutory guidance on uniforms for schools and local authorities during the lifetime of this parliamentary session.
Our school uniform guidance will consider a range of issues which we feel will be important to both the children and young people attending school, and their families. The issues covered will of course include affordability of school uniforms, as well as the consideration of equalities when deciding upon uniform policies and considerations for physical education classes. Also, at times of extreme weather, schools already have the flexibility to temporarily adjust their uniform policies to take account of exceptional weather conditions if they feel it would be beneficial to do so.
My officials will be launching a public consultation on our proposed school uniform guidance on the Scottish Government’s consultation hub in the new year and Matthew will be welcome to contribute his views to this consultation if he wishes to do so.
I hope that this information is helpful to the Committee in it’s consideration of the petition.